Watch out for Wikipedia

So I was researching the ‘misery index’—the unemployment rate plus the inflation rate—and of course looked at the wikipedia entry. The very first sentence says:

The Misery Index is an economic indicator created by Chicago economist Robert Barro in the 1970s

Okay. I didn’t remember that. So I looked further. Under the Wikipedia entry for Barro, it said:

During the 1970s Barro also developed the concept of the Misery Index, which Jimmy Carter publicized during his 1976 presidential campaign, and Ronald Reagan in his 1980 presidential campaign

Boy, that’s pretty specific. So I shot off an email to Barro asking him if that was true (it was 5AM in the morning, and I was pretty sleepy). In the meantime, I looked at the site www.miseryindex.us, which says

The misery index was initiated by Chicago Economist Robert Barro in the 1970’s

The index was initiated in the 1970s by a U.S. economist named Robert Barro

Safety in numbers? Hardly. By then my brain was functioning, despite the early hour, and I was pretty sure all these entries were wrong. Finally I tracked down the truth. In fact, the original misery index was invented by economist Arthur Okun. Barro was responsible for the much more recent “Barro misery index,” which he described in a 1999 BusinessWeek column . The Barro misery index includes GDP and interest rates, as well as unemployment and inflation.

The moral of this story: Be very suspicious of Wikipedia information, even if it seems confirmed by other sites.

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Reader Comments

Ray Lopez

November 1, 2006 12:48 PM

Good comment. I just fixed the Wikipedia article based on this article. For now it's correct (could change in the future though)

Kartik

November 1, 2006 01:09 PM

Unfortunately, it is still the best source out there. 99% of wrong info does get corrected over time. Plus, even YOU can correct that entry that you have verified is wrong. That is the beauty of it.

Brandon W

November 1, 2006 01:53 PM

I wonder if all those other sites used Wikipedia as their source? Colbert's "Wikiality" lives!

By the way, what is the misery index these days? And what would it be if:
A) The government hadn't changed the way it calculated unemployment in January 2003, and
B) The inflation were calculated without all the hedonic games?

Tom

November 1, 2006 02:53 PM

If only one could correct the misinformation that appears in the NY Times! Wouldn't that be nice.

Mike Mandel

November 1, 2006 03:07 PM

Actually, I like wikipedia a lot. But we aren't teaching our kids how to adopt the proper skeptical attitude.

Brandon W

November 2, 2006 11:45 AM

There probably aren't any surprising numbers there, but the articles lays out the reality of most of the country (vs the top 1%) quite nicely.

martin

November 2, 2006 12:24 PM

so if you went to the miseryindex site first and never went to wikipedia, then your stupid article would be about not trusting miseryindex.com. what a waste of your time and mine for answering

Patrick J. Walker

November 3, 2006 08:11 AM

Epilogue. The Wiki article on Robert Barro attributes the Misery Index to him. It is tough to update all of Wiki.

By the way, we created a Wiki in my division to track several engineering processes. It works very well at pushing out about 80% correct information and 20% incorrect information.

Not great you say. Perhaps true. I can't measure it, but I suspect pre-Wiki were were pushing out 50% correct and 50% incorrect information.

Thus, I postulate that even an inaccurate Wiki is better than no Wiki. - pjw

Peter

November 3, 2006 08:18 AM

Actually, wasn't wikipedia the first one you found wrong, so shouldn't the lesson be information you find on the internet, not just wikipedia. It just shows that research should start at wikipedia, but not end there, especially if there is information you were skeptical about.

Brandon W

November 3, 2006 10:59 AM

The jobless claims shoot up way beyond expectations (18,000)... The economy produces a meager 92,000 jobs...

And the Unemployment Rate drops .2% to 4.4%?

Doesn't anyone else see the preposterous disconnect? Could someone tell the government that losing $300/mo promoting your Amway "business" does not constitute real employment?

Mike Mandel

November 3, 2006 12:05 PM

Martin, Peter..

It would be interesting to see where the misinformation started first. However, I'm pretty sure that the first stop for most people these days is going to be the wikipedia.

Joe Cushing

November 6, 2006 12:50 AM

I've read that wiki is more accurate than traditional book based encyclopedias. The difference is they have a credibility issue since anyone can edit it.

Bobby Bushe

April 3, 2008 08:17 PM

Youse a Bumb!

Thank you for your interest. This blog is no longer active.

About

Michael Mandel, BW's award-winning chief economist, provides his unique perspective on the hot economic issues of the day. From globalization to the future of work to the ups and downs of the financial markets, Mandel-named 2006 economic journalist of the year by the World Leadership Forum-offers cutting edge analysis and commentary.